[HN Gopher] A university president makes a case against cowardice
___________________________________________________________________
A university president makes a case against cowardice
Author : pseudolus
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-04-03 12:29 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| pseudolus wrote:
| https://archive.ph/a9ie5
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Wild that he is some kind of exception. Rolling over, folding is
| not the university culture I remember.
| rincebrain wrote:
| There wasn't, historically, the level of enormous potential
| negative consequences legally and practically if the
| universities talked back.
|
| Universities, like many institutions, have also become more
| like large incumbent businesses than previously - e.g.
| perpetuating their own existence over having strong core
| values.
| toddmorey wrote:
| This is really well articulated. It's like how a company uses
| fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to justify a pivot
| away from some kind of principled stance.
| cess11 wrote:
| Might have been a mistake to let some of them turn into real
| estate hedge funds.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Biden was considering withholding federal funds from schools
| over their vaccine policies[1], and tried to withhold federal
| funds from schools based on how they treat transgender
| students[2], but that was blocked by a judge. Obama did a
| similar thing regarding transgender students[3].
|
| Things like this are why Hillsdale College rejects all
| federal funds. So they can do what they want without threat
| of the government revoking funding[4].
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vaccines-
| delta...
|
| [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/06/12/texas-title-ix-
| lgbtq...
|
| [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2016/05/13/477896804...
|
| [4]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/the-
| co...
| rincebrain wrote:
| Sure, but my argument was not "the federal government has
| never done this", but that "colleges have usually felt
| secure that this would not be done to them if they defended
| student protests", or at least, if we're being cynical,
| "that they would have an opportunity to walk it back if
| their calculations were incorrect".
| CaptWillard wrote:
| Not sure when you graduated, but I've seen a complete
| inversion.
|
| Much like 90s rockers, they now rage exclusively on behalf of
| the machine.
| techpineapple wrote:
| Tell that to the students getting disappeared for writing
| blog posts.
| maeln wrote:
| Well I think that is the point. The university now are
| rolling over, not protecting their student.
| techright75 wrote:
| You mean the ones who are here on American grace but
| continue to break the law through disruptive protests and
| damaged property?
|
| You can write all the blogs you want but when you break the
| law with illegal protests and property damage, you don't
| get to stay. Most Americans agree on that, even if you
| don't.
| techpineapple wrote:
| You put a lot of words in my mouth, I agree, Let's arrest
| and deport all of the students tried and convicted of
| property damage.
| vFunct wrote:
| No. We mean the ones being disappeared for writing blog
| posts, as stated.
|
| You don't have to write any other description for them.
|
| Thanks.
| dingaling wrote:
| I don't know where this current usage of 'disappeared'
| arose but it does a disservice to the ~ 30,000 Disappeared
| of Argentina under the Junta of 1976-83.
|
| 'Disappeared' meant being thrown out of the back of an
| aircraft into the Atlantic, or their bodies burned in pits.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| The fact that very bad things happened to the Disappeared
| of Argentina makes me more concerned about the
| Disappeared of US, not less.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| First we're not allowed to call the detention camps
| "concentration camps" because there aren't ovens, now we
| can't call them "disappearances" because they're not
| getting thrown out of helicopters. Forget that people are
| getting shipped to a foreign torture slave camp from
| which nobody has been released with, and with no due
| process.
|
| I think this language policing may be because people
| don't want to allow opposition to these things, rather
| than out of honor for the dead. The way to honor the dead
| is to prevent the circumstances of their deaths from
| happening again.
|
| Which is exactly why we must stand up against the
| disappearances, the camps, the collaborators, the secret
| police.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| This is exactly how it went in Russia. First it was,
| 'Well, this isn't that bad.' Then, 'Okay, sure, this
| isn't great--but it's not like we need to take action
| yet.' And bit by bit, people kept rationalizing,
| minimizing, delaying--until suddenly it was, 'Well...
| we're f'd.' That's why we should speak up now.
|
| We're already at the point where one side is openly
| arguing that due process isn't guaranteed by the
| Constitution--because it's inconvenient. So how many
| rights do we have to give up before it's acceptable to
| call it out? How many norms have to be broken? How many
| lines crossed?
|
| It's not like (other than Elon) they're going to show up
| in Hugo Boss suits one day and announce 'we have crossed
| the line to where you can criticize us now'.
| LightHugger wrote:
| I agree. But did you stand up against discrimination
| against innocent people under the banner of DEI? Did you
| stand up against government directed censorship campaigns
| on social media?
|
| The time to stand up was actually way before the extreme
| actions of the left inspired this extreme reactionary
| overcorrection from the right. You're supposed to stand
| up while you're still in power, not after you've lost it,
| it's a bit late. I still remember people insisting "but
| deplatforming works!" as they justified mass censorship
| of conservatives. Honestly if you have not stood up for
| the people you politically disagreed with as the noose
| tightened over the last 10 years you are part of the
| cause of this terrible over-correction.
|
| I can only hope that people start noticing this pattern
| and the inevitable next "correction" is not so extreme
| and we get some damping on the seemingly accelerating
| pendulum back and fourth.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| The government never prevented anyone from speaking. Free
| speech was not violated when assholes were banned from
| platforms for being assholes. The owners of those
| platforms are not the government.
|
| https://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-
| silenced/
| anon743448 wrote:
| Very different. They were not kidnapped by secret police
| or held in inhumane conditions in far away jails.
| breppp wrote:
| because invalid comparisons weaken your argument and make
| you seem like you are oblivious of truth
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Did you go down to Plaza de Mayo to speak to some of las
| Madres and ask how they feel about it, or where is your
| idea coming from?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I agree getting shipped off to a concentration camp
| ("detention center") without resource to justice is not
| on par with getting thrown out of a helicopter, but it's
| starting to get pretty damn close. And Trump is only
| getting started. If he had 7 years like the Junta did, we
| might wind up with our own contingent of desaparecidos.
| techpineapple wrote:
| Kidnapped off the streets? I think for "bodies burned in
| pits" I might prefer "slaughtered" or "butchered".
| Disappeared sounds rather light for what we're currently
| discussing to my ear.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| "Disappeared" does strongly imply that those people are
| dead, because that's what usually to happen to people
| that the government decides to kidnap.
|
| But then, that's what usually happen to the people that
| the government decides to kidnap. So the OP's usage is
| perfectly correct, and the expectation that those people
| are dead should exist. Including the people that we know
| that were sent to the concentration camp, because despite
| nobody claiming it's an extermination camp the leading
| one does strongly tend to morph into the later.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 1990, FWIW.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Many universities are more like family offices that operate
| schools. Columbia is historically one of the biggest slumlords
| in NYC through their various entities.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > not the university culture I remember.
|
| that's because universities are now businesses first, research
| institutions second, and academic institutions third
| red_admiral wrote:
| This point gets to the heart of the matter. The more I look
| into it, everything else seems downstream from this.
| mantas wrote:
| Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing
| any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life
| is not cool, that ,,activism" itself went off the rails too.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Freedom of speech necessarily implies that a group of people
| might team up and loudly announce that the people they don't
| agree with are incorrect and immoral and should be ignored or
| even ostracized. That's the price of freedom of speech, and
| it's a fair price.
|
| Being annoyed, inconvenienced, or even negatively impacted by
| the speech acts of others is by design. To throw that out is to
| make a calculation that without freedom of speech, your
| perspective will be the natural default without activism to
| upset it. A dangerous assumption.
| clarionbell wrote:
| Problem is that in the past two decades university admins
| gave in to various deplatforming causes and enforced codes.
| If they had stood firm before, the arguments against them
| wouldn't be nearly as strong. Unfortunately, they didn't. So
| when they now use the "free speech" argument themselves it
| rings hollow.
| rightbyte wrote:
| No it doesn't ring hallow. It is just that the issue is
| old.
| mmooss wrote:
| Those policies were designed to promote free speech from
| vulnerable groups. Political vulnerability has a huge
| influence on free speech (and freedom), and that's what
| they have been addressing.
|
| (Picking two random groups:) If you are Pakistani and are
| in a room of all Indian people, and the others say how
| horrible Pakistanis are and how research shows that
| Pakistanis are less intelligent or prone to violence, that
| is a very intimidating atmosphere and it would be hard to
| endure, much less speak up.
|
| If that one Pakistani says the same about Indians, it's
| obnoxious and annoying, but it's no threat to anyone. The
| many Indians are not vulnerable. That's the difference.
|
| Furthermore, the dominant groups in a culture tend to
| create systems and knowledge that support them to the
| exclusion of others - sometimes explicitly and
| intentionally. That's systemic discrimination - the system
| naturally generates it if you follow the usual path. It
| takes some effort to create space for other points of view.
|
| Whether the typical DEI policies are optimal is another
| question. I haven't heard anyone come up with a great
| solution. Some pretend it's not a problem and there is no
| prejudice, which is absurd and not a solution; it's just
| sticking one's head in the sand - because they can, because
| they are not vulnerable.
| geertj wrote:
| > they don't agree with are incorrect and immoral and should
| be ignored or even ostracized
|
| You have that right. But doing this is not always wise.
| Labeling people as immoral and ostracizing them, especially
| on 50/50 issues, is one of the reason why the American
| political system is so radicalized at the moment.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| That's a question of tactics, though. Moral outrage can be
| extremely effective, and it can also be counterproductive.
| And striking the right balance has been a challenge in
| American politics as long as American politics have
| existed.
|
| In his Second Inaugural, Lincoln threads the needle in a
| way that is frankly unachievable for even most skilled
| politicians. "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same
| God and each invokes His aid against the other" seems like
| an acknowledgement of moral nuance, but he follows it up
| with, "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask
| a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the
| sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be
| not judged."
|
| Speaking to a nation in which a part of it is in open
| revolt over the right to keep other humans as slaves is
| certainly an extreme case. But it isn't categorically
| different from any other political struggle. People are
| going to accuse one another of being immoral. It's the
| human condition. A legal system that protects this behavior
| is the bedrock of democracy. It doesn't matter how annoying
| you find the people doing the judging.
| mantas wrote:
| I'll defend other people rights to offend me. But nowadays
| some people think others, even just between themselves, can't
| say what would offend them.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| A lot of people are fair-weather friends of freedom of
| speech. It's all well and good if everybody is allowed to
| express themselves as long as everybody, if they don't like
| me, at least respects me.
|
| I guess some people were never in favor of freedom of
| speech, they just wanted a world where they faced minimal
| interpersonal conflict, and the current order for a while
| was serving that purpose.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| We all know that isn't the kind of activism being targeted.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Can you be a bit more specific what kind of "thought
| suppression" you mean?
| mind-blight wrote:
| I know someone who works for a university in event planning.
| They were putting together an event for a civil rights icon.
| Because of the new policies, they were forced to go through all
| of the brochures and pamphlets and censor any use of words such
| as "racism" and "black" (when referring to the man's skin
| color).
|
| They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against racism"
| about a civil rights icon without losing millions in funding. I
| have no idea how someone can argue that this kind of censorship
| targeting universities is acceptable
| mantas wrote:
| It is not acceptable. But at the same time the US
| ,,antiracist" campaign itself looks just like (reverse)
| racism in many case. Two unacceptables don't cancel each
| other out. But you reap what you saw.
|
| Just my 2 euro cents.
| diogocp wrote:
| > They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against
| racism" about a civil rights icon without losing millions in
| funding.
|
| They could. They just preferred to play the victim.
| carbocation wrote:
| So far the fight/not fight decisions can be predicted in advanced
| based on whether an institution has a medical center with NIH
| grants.
| alephnerd wrote:
| And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why
| you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a
| similarly active student activism scene.
|
| Most other private universities could have easily managed the
| relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from
| certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up.
|
| Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni
| relations team actually TRY to maintain a relationship. The
| other high prestige colleges (excluding USC) ignore you until
| they need to hit fundraising KPIs.
|
| A Tuck or Dartmouth College grad will always fight for an alum
| if they make it to the shortlist - most other Ivy grads don't
| (Wharton kinda, but that's only for Wharton). This really helps
| build loyalty.
|
| [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-
| bombarding...
| ghaff wrote:
| Dartmouth is smaller and has, historically, had a stronger
| and more intense ongoing alumni connection in various ways
| than is probably the norm with the Ivies in general.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Dartmouth is smaller
|
| Yale and Dartmouth are similar in student body size, yet
| Yale has been hit by investigations [0] while Dartmouth has
| been spared.
|
| [0] - https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-
| civil-rig...
| ghaff wrote:
| Fair enough. Yale has more/bigger grad schools--though
| Dartmouth has tended to expand in that respect (though it
| doesn't have a law school).
| CPLX wrote:
| Dartmouth is also famously the "conservative" Ivy.
| alephnerd wrote:
| More "conservative" than Columbia but still fairly liberal
| - the overwhelming majority of students backed Harris [0]
| and support abortion rights [1]
|
| The Israel-Palestine protests (which sparked this whole
| university culture war issue) were fairly active at
| Dartmouth as well, but messaging around it was better
| handled by their admin.
|
| The only conservative-ish and kinda prestigious college
| (not university) I can think of is Claremont McKenna, but
| they are drowned out within the larger Claremont community.
|
| [0] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-ele
| ction-a...
|
| [1] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-ele
| ction-s...
| Balgair wrote:
| The way I saw the Columbia protests was that Donny's trial
| was downtown, and because it was not televised, producers
| told their crews to stop filming the doors to the courthouse.
| So, looking for any story at all, they took the subway uptown
| to the hippies camping out on the quad. Hey, at least it's
| better than literally staring at a door, right? Next thing
| you know, the student protest thing blew up. Why? Because
| there was literally nothing else going on for the TV news
| crews to film those days. Soon as graduation happened and the
| trial wrapped up, we never heard another thing.
|
| Dartmouth, sure, it may have a high energy protest scene and
| be smart and whatever. But no-one knows about it - not
| because they are crafty - but because it's in freakin
| Hanover.
| ty6853 wrote:
| And NSF grants?
| carbocation wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the NSF funding mechanisms or how
| people track NSF funding. Not saying NSF is not relevant,
| just that I'm not using it for my personal heuristic right
| now.
| dekhn wrote:
| https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdlst2/default.asp shows the
| NSF funding for Wesleyan.
|
| You can drill down and infer some of the details about the
| funding programs.
| carbocation wrote:
| Thank you. So, another _de minimis_ amount ($1.8
| million): it 's not exactly zero, but it's just about as
| much as their NIH support. Columbia, as a comparator,
| gets $100 million in NSF funding.
| dekhn wrote:
| I also found a DOE grant, about $800K.
|
| I think this is the full list, NIH looks like a subset of
| overall HHS funding, and NSF is the actual single largest
| (around $2.5M)
|
| https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin
| =U3...
|
| Wesleyan falls into a really weird bucket: a private
| liberal arts university, generally considered a "little
| Ivy" with a modest, slightly better than its competitors
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies) in terms of
| research clout. The impact of losing all scientific
| federal funding would be noticeable, but presumably, not
| fatal; I don't think they structured the operating costs
| of the university to be dependent on federal research
| funding like many other schools.
|
| I grew up at Wesleyan- both my parents worked there, it
| paid for my university education, gave me access to the
| internet in the 1980s (via NSF funding), and gave me
| insight into liberal education, all of which prepared me
| to go off to a California university, maximize my
| education, and deploy that into my career. I think many
| people don't recognize the intense second order effects
| (mostly positive) of federal funding of research.
| drooby wrote:
| He states in the interview that Wesleyan has NIH grants. They
| are preparing to let scientists go if it comes to it.
| carbocation wrote:
| Wesleyan does not have a medical center and according to the
| NIH's public reporting, they have under $2 million in NIH
| grants, compared to $600 million for Columbia. ( _Edited from
| $400 million, which is the value cut._ )
|
| Wesleyan has a $250 million operating budget, so the (from
| what REPORTER indicates) $1.6 million in NIH funding
| represents 0.6% of their budget. In contrast, the $600
| million in NIH funding to Columbia represents about 10% of
| its $6 billion operating budget.
|
| So both in terms of absolute numbers and relative numbers,
| the NIH contributions to Wesleyan are _de minimis_.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| That makes a strong case for academic institutions not
| being substantially dependent on government research
| dollars.
| dcrazy wrote:
| No it doesn't. The First amendment is supposed to prevent
| the government from conditionalizing access to government
| services based on the speech of the recipient. Private
| institutions are not subject to such restrictions. If we
| want to encourage academic freedom, we want to find this
| behavior by the government to be illegal.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > we want to find this behavior by the government to be
| illegal
|
| of course we do - but we're sadly discovering how easy it
| is for the government to target and coerce these
| universities, with nobody stepping up to stop them
| dcrazy wrote:
| So we want universities to get their funding from private
| sources that are expressly entitled to impose the same
| kind of conditions? Or do we want universities to spend
| more time and overhead on cobbling their funding together
| from a large number of intellectually and morally diverse
| sources? Where will these sources get their money without
| the power of taxation?
| nickff wrote:
| If you're going to resort to Constitutional arguments,
| you shouldn't gloss over the fact that the federal
| government is supposed to be one of enumerated powers,
| and there's no 'bribing universities to do what you want'
| federal power.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| What do you think that 10% of budget is paying for that
| the university is spending on? It's more or less paying
| for the building and all that goes into it for the
| research that the NIH called for grant proposals to
| happen in. This is the entire idiocy about indirect
| benefits. Yes, paying for the building is not spending
| money directly on research. But you can't exactly do lab
| work without a lab building you know.
| acc_297 wrote:
| Great article - I had no idea about the proposed endowment tax
| that's crazy
|
| "Trump and Republicans in Congress have floated proposals to make
| colleges pay the government, including through substantial
| expansions of a tax on college endowments."[1]
|
| They really are stripping that country for parts.
|
| [1] https://www.highereddive.com/news/higher-ed-endowment-tax-
| co...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Modern republicans love the big lie. Thats why we have
| congressmen quoting Goebels on the House floor. They think
| about this stuff. If one of these guys says they want to meet
| you for lunch, prepare for breakfast.
|
| They just implemented the biggest tax increase in history via
| executive fiat, because we've declared an "emergency" over
| Fentanyl or some other bullshit. We keep taxes low by basically
| taxing the world via our reserve currency status, and are
| blowing that up because some fringe lunatic has access to a
| president who is dumb.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Can't wait for all those people who did not remotely understand
| academic financing, who constantly fell back on "why doesn't
| the university illegally misappropriate endowment funds" to
| come apologize.
|
| ...Any minute.
| westurner wrote:
| Then they would need to tax nonprofit religious organizations
| too.
|
| Why don't they just make the special interests pay their own
| multi-trillion dollar war bills instead of sabotaging US
| universities with surprise taxes?
|
| If you increase expenses and cut revenue, what should you
| expect for your companies?
| ty6853 wrote:
| Why not just make a flat tax for everyone and end all the
| special interest pandering and exceptions for the rich. It is
| a poisonous misapplication of the time of our government to
| constantly be fiddling with tax code to favor one group or
| another.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Because a lot of people, including many economists, believe
| capital accumulating endlessly to the same class of
| thousand-ish people is bad. A flat income tax exacerbates
| wealth inequality considerably.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Our tax now is worse than flat. Warren buffet brags about
| paying less % than his secretary.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Either compare ideal tax structures with "no loopholes"
| (none of these exist in the real world) or compare
| actually-existing tax structures.
|
| Comparing your ideal flat income tax with the current
| system is apples to oranges.
| ty6853 wrote:
| >>Why don't they just make the special interests pay
| their own multi-trillion dollar war bills instead of
| sabotaging US universities with surprise taxes?
|
| >Either compare ideal tax structures with "no loopholes"
| (none of these exist in the real world) or compare
| actually-existing tax structures.
|
| Hence I cannot compare your suggestion with the current
| system as it is apple to oranges because loopholes would
| exist.
|
| My thesis is a flat tax would help to minimize the very
| loopholes you damn. The larger the tax code and the more
| it panders to particular interest, generally the more
| opportunity for 'loopholes.'
| westurner wrote:
| IDK if it's bragging or voiced concern.
| westurner wrote:
| I don't want to work for a business created by, uh, upper
| class folks that wouldn't have done it if not for
| temporary tax breaks by a pandering grifter executive.
|
| I believe in a strong middle class and upward mobility
| for all.
|
| I don't think we want businesses that are dependent on
| war, hate, fear, and division for continued
| profitability.
|
| I don't know whether a flat or a regressive or a
| progressive tax system is more fair or more total society
| optimal.
|
| I suspect it is true that, Higher income individuals
| receive more total subsidies than lower-income
| individuals.
|
| You don't want a job at a firm that an already-wealthy
| founder could only pull off due to short-term tax breaks
| and wouldn't have founded if taxes go any higher.
|
| You want a job at a firm run by people who are going to
| keep solving for their mission regardless of high taxes
| due to immediately necessary war expenses, for example.
|
| In the interests of long-term economic health and
| national security of the United States, I don't think
| they should be cutting science and medical research
| funding.
|
| Science funding has positive returns. Science funding has
| greater returns than illegal wars (that still aren't paid
| for).
|
| Find 1980 on these charts of tax receipts, GDP, and
| income inequality:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43140500 :
|
| > _" Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic
| Product" https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S _
|
| > _" Federal Debt: Total Public Debt as Percent of Gross
| Domestic Product"
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S _
|
| From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43220833 re:
| income inequality:
|
| > _GINI Index for the United
| States:https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA _
|
| Find 1980 on a GINI index chart.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, I think we agree on most points.
|
| I think there's too many confounding economic factors to
| look at GINI alone and conclude the 1980 turning point
| was caused by nerfing the top income tax bracket. But a
| compelling argument could probably be made with more
| supporting data, which of course this margin is too
| narrow to contain and etc.
| cess11 wrote:
| I suspect it's about putting infrastructure in place to ensure
| loyalty in times of turbulence.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > And in the last two months, it's become painfully apparent that
| wanting to have nice conversations is not going to stop people
| who are bent on authoritarianism. Right now, I'm not sure what
| will stop them, except successful court challenges, and even that
| seems precarious.
|
| Winning elections could work.
|
| > Watching the video of this poor woman at Tufts who was abducted
| by federal agents --I wrote my blog today about that. I think the
| government is spreading terror, and that's what they mean to do.
|
| Brother, a blog post is, quoting you, a "nice conversation." A
| New Yorker interview is a nice conversation.
|
| Getting rid of legacy admissions... guess who wins elections? The
| sons and daughters of politicians! Whereas grandstanding on X or
| Y achieves nothing.
| tomohawk wrote:
| This is rich. The Universities that caved to student activists
| engaged in antisemitism and other egregious activities should now
| fight for their rights to be cowards? Or the Universities that
| engaged in racist DEI programs are now going to stand on
| principal?
|
| Give me a break.
| sequoia wrote:
| A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do
| people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is
| there anything they could have done differently in the past
| decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's
| ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?
| pjc50 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings was arguably
| a worse time for universities.
|
| Protesting attracts reprisals. Universities taught people, both
| explicitly and by example, to stand up for what they believed
| in, but have undersold students on how dangerous that is.
| Universities could have done a better job explaining that
| certain injustices are load-bearing, and that calling them out
| will make half the country hate you.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| > certain injustices are load-bearing
|
| This is an excellent way of explaining why some injustices
| are ignored and others decried. Thank you
| drooby wrote:
| I think it's actually extremely simple.. because the herd
| mentality is extremely simple. Intellectuals think it's complex
| because intellectuals love complexity.. This is what happened..
|
| The right witnessed riots over the past decade. These riots
| were in response to police brutality and perceived racism. The
| ideas behind anti-racism spawned a perceived new ideology -
| "wokism". This frightened the right. Intellectuals on the right
| mapped the origins of this new ideology to philosophies from
| elite institutions. Therefore, these institutions must be
| punished to be kept in check.
|
| It's really that simple..
|
| What I find interesting about this guy is that in a way he
| actually is "caving" to the demands of the administration. This
| uni president advocates for more heterodox thinking - which is
| in alignment with what the Trump admin wants as well... maybe
| that's why Wesleyan won't be punished..
| krapp wrote:
| Nothing about this is new - the right has harbored a
| particular hatred for "academics" and "intellectuals" since
| at least the anti-war and civil rights movements of the
| 1960s. Today's fear of "wokism" is just the prior
| generation's fear of "cultural marxism" with a new coat of
| paint.
|
| But this kind of political talk is against the guidelines.
| Good hackers don't care about any of this. So Javascript is
| getting crazy, huh?
| e40 wrote:
| When the politics get crazy enough it bleeds into
| everything, which is why it's now acceptable to discuss
| here.
| krapp wrote:
| I think you'll find that no matter how crazy it gets or
| what it bleeds into, it's never going to be acceptable to
| discuss here. As soon as people get a whiff of "politics"
| they're going to start flagging. Especially if they see
| the "T" word.
|
| The regime could be rolling dissidents into mass graves
| and the only valid point of discussion for most people
| here would be packing algorithms.
| andelink wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance, but what is the "T" word in this
| context?
| Smithalicious wrote:
| Tigger
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| China
| ty6853 wrote:
| Most people don't care about university protests. They're
| largely a means to get laid while achieving nothing and at
| worst destroying their own university. As long as they don't
| spill out into the surrounding town any outrage is essentially
| theater.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| There are some reasons that I think you probably know, which
| don't receive enough time and attention
|
| 1) Despite an appearance of being "left leaning" (according to
| polls of faculty political sentiment) they continue to gatekeep
| education behind prohibitively expensive tuition that is out of
| reach of lower economic strata without crippling debt, and have
| simultaneously struggled to produce graduates whose economic
| differential easily makes up for that expense and lost work
| time.
|
| 2) They enjoy a tax free status while receiving significant tax
| money despite many failing to grow their student bodies in
| tandem with the growth of the US population, leading to people
| questioning whether they deserve those benefits as institutions
| that serve the public.
|
| 3) There is a sentiment that basic literacy and numeracy of
| graduates has dropped over the last decades outside of a narrow
| area of studies, because of a shift to a model where students
| are customers buying a credential instead of getting an
| education.
|
| (These are all interrelated, of course.)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > many failing to grow their student bodies in tandem with
| the growth of the US population
|
| this is mostly true of elite schools (who nowadays are mostly
| selling a brand more than an education), not so much of state
| schools
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Ironically, many elite universities are actually either
| free or nearly free, for lower-income students. The super-
| rich probably don't care. While we middle-class families
| don't qualify for need-based aid, and are on the hook to
| pay outrageous sums, largely to subsidize the aid for
| others.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Lower economic strata doesn't take on debt, they get aid and
| free rides, cherry work study jobs to put some money in the
| pocket too. It is the middle class or upper middle class that
| insists in eschewing their state school benefit for a more or
| less comparable school in another state (or without favorable
| scholarship and aid package) that take the brunt of the
| loans.
| _bohm wrote:
| While not about resentment towards universities specifically, I
| thought this article in The Baffler [1] did a good job of
| framing a dynamic that, I think, contributes to this
| phenomenon.
|
| My interpretation: As the country has entered the post-
| industrial era, holding a college degree has increasingly
| become a table-stakes credential for entering the white collar
| labor force. The higher education system has struggled or
| failed to grow to meet increased demand for these credentials,
| which both drives up the cost and increases selectivity of
| higher-ed institutions. A lot of people get burned by this and
| become locked out of and, crucially, geographically separated
| from labor markets that now constitute the majority of US GDP.
| This split causes non degree holders to view degree holders as
| their class enemies, and the universities as the class gateway
| that divides them.
|
| [1] https://thebaffler.com/latest/one-elite-two-elites-red-
| elite...
| keybored wrote:
| Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that
| word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one
| themselves? Me neither. That's a they-hate-me-cause'-they-
| ain't-me kind of logic.[1]
|
| True othering comes from people living in different worlds
| and hating the other person's world.
|
| [1] I did not read the the article but I've read this
| argument in a Graeber article.
| bell-cot wrote:
| There's a highly emotional Right-Left culture war going on in
| America. Many of our "flagship" universities conspicuously
| sided with the Left - at least on most of the "litmus test"
| issues. And where universities didn't do that, the Right found
| it advantageous to talk up the association & outrage anyway.
|
| Any decent History Prof. could have explained to the U's that
| openly taking one side in long-term cultural wars was not a
| viable long-term strategy.
|
| (Or, maybe that's why so many universities cut their History
| Dept's so brutally? Though "just shoot inconvenient messengers"
| is also not a viable long-term strategy.)
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Billionaires shifted the overton window by pouring money into
| extreme right-wing media outlets and social media platforms.
| Every other existing institution now appears "left-wing" by
| comparison. That's not universities' fault.
| lmm wrote:
| Not true, at least on social issues, which is what the
| universities are getting burned for. Policy positions that
| were mainstream in 2000 are now painted as far-right.
| disambiguation wrote:
| The political and ideological divide speaks for itself, but on
| behalf of the common folk universities have been failing their
| core mission - to provide the people with a quality education.
| The inversion and disconnect between the cost of tuition and
| economic outcomes is stunning. Too many kids who don't know
| better are pressured into pursuing higher education and taking
| on massive debt, only to graduate without any job prospects or
| reasonable hopes of paying off their loans. The salt in the
| wounds is that universities are flush with cash, yet its spent
| on anything and everything except for the welfare of the
| students.
| harimau777 wrote:
| It feels to me like part of the disconnect is that education
| and job training isn't necessarily the same thing. For many
| majors improving economic outcomes is not the core mission.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Its an implicit promise, and we can already see the
| pendulum swinging back in the form of lower enrollment as
| more people catch on.
| jwjohnson314 wrote:
| > The salt in the wounds is that universities are flush with
| cash, yet its spent on anything and everything except for the
| welfare of the students.
|
| Maybe the elites. State schools and small colleges are not
| flush with cash and many have been shuttered or severely
| downsized recently. Though they could still spend their
| limited funds better.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Recent events alone do not fully represent the affairs of
| the past 2+ decades. Community, state, ivy, all levels were
| gorging themselves on federal funding and endowments. I
| have no comment on the current admin, but blatantly
| inefficient use of funds is an understatement.
| taeric wrote:
| Have they been failing at their core missions, though? You
| say there has been an inversion/disconnect between cost of
| tuition and economic outcomes, but looking at the data
| doesn't back that. At least, I have yet to see anything that
| supports an inversion. Diminished returns maybe. Certainly a
| good case to not take out loans to get into school if you
| don't have a reasonable chance of graduation.
|
| But that is true of everything we do loans for, nowadays. The
| amount of consumer debt that people contort themselves into
| justifying is insane. If you want to use that as evidence
| that grade schools are failing in education, I can largely
| agree with you.
| dogleash wrote:
| >or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100%
| irrational? am*biv*a*lence /am'biv(@)l@ns/
| noun the state of having mixed feelings or
| contradictory ideas about something or someone.
|
| Ambivalence seems like a rational take on post-secondary
| education in the US. I'd say an unwavering opinion (positive or
| negative) would be irrational. It's such a complex beast that
| serves so many roles and touches so many lives.
|
| >A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why
| do people harbour this much animosity towards these
| institutions?
|
| There are a lot of very real things that are rotten in academia
| if you exclude the social politics center to this article.
|
| So when people see they're loosing federal funding... yeah,
| some will think along the lines of "eh, whatever, fuck 'em,
| maybe they'll figure out how to clean their own house."
| Especially if the university is also known for both sitting on
| a large endowment and for prioritizing self-serving
| administrators over doing academics.
| Gothmog69 wrote:
| They could have not been so partisan
| (https://readlion.com/93-of-college-profs-political-
| donations... ), supported rational discourse (
| https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/2025-college-free-spe...
| ) , not used race to discriminate on certain out groups (
| https://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/issue/discriminatio...
| ). Just for starters
| recursive wrote:
| Provide a way to get a lower-cost credential without using the
| tuition to subsidize research/athletics/arts/social programs.
|
| But that might be counter to their whole nature. Doesn't mean
| anyone's being irrational though. They're now de-facto
| gatekeepers on entering the professional class. I don't think
| it's unreasonable for the gate-kept to have opinions about the
| -keepers.
| treis wrote:
| I've got the ticket to get in the gate and I'm pretty
| resentful of having to get it. Looking back there were a lot
| better ways to spend 4 years and 100k.
| guywithahat wrote:
| > attacks on universities
|
| This really feels like bad phrasing, when people read that they
| roll their eyes. Basically every major republican politician
| went to college, nobody is attacking universities, they're
| trying to help the students.
| watwut wrote:
| Yes they went to universities. No, they are not trying to
| help the students. They don't even pretend to be trying to do
| so. They are nit trying to make it cheaper and they are not
| trying to make it more accessible.
|
| They agenda was either openly the opposite or they ignored
| the students. Except when they think they are too progressive
| and attack then verbally.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I mean, at a minimum, they think they're helping students.
| Nobody would vote for a politician who just makes things
| worse, that doesn't make sense.
|
| In this case, they're trying to make universities more fair
| and to reduce government waste in universities by removing
| DEI programs. There's lots of logic to that.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I think there's class warfare practically baked in with how
| paying for college works today. Imagine trying to determine how
| much a fancy car costs, and being told "it depends on how much
| money you have". That's on the upper-middle-class side.
|
| The other side is just part of the worldview of the rampant
| anti-intellectualism which Trump rode to power.
| taeric wrote:
| Hard not to see this as a class war that has been fed by some
| of the personalities that were big in the "conservative" sphere
| for a long time. Modern podcast influencers are big, but this
| isn't exactly a new thing. Rush and his ilk were big on lashing
| out against "ivory tower" theories. And they didn't invent the
| idea. Just went after easy targets.
|
| None of which is to say that mistakes weren't made in the
| institutions. They were. Mistakes were also made by the
| critics. Populism, sadly, has a habit of celebrating their
| worst and elevating them to heights they flat out can't handle.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Fox News. I don't think it's 100% irrational but perhaps 99%
| irrational. These ideas usually contain a nugget of truth.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| I don't mind saying this is some serious Nazi stuff going on. The
| federal government is trying to obstruct free speech, jailing
| people for free speech... we are in a bad place.
| JacobiX wrote:
| Not sure if Michael Roth is related to Philip Roth, but it
| somehow reminds me of American Pastoral and that era of protests
| against the Vietnam War and its aftermath. I'm not entirely sure
| how those demonstrations compare to the ones we're seeing today,
| but the parallels are striking
| guywithahat wrote:
| The best solution here is for universities to become less
| involved with government money. They should have to compete for
| students and research on an even playing field, and we shouldn't
| be creating politically aligned fields through government
| spending.
| mmooss wrote:
| I don't see much talk of donors? My impression is that, as in
| many situations, the super-wealthy are forming a dominant class -
| as if it's their right - rather than respect democracy and
| freedom, and attacking university freedom. Didn't some person
| engineer the Harvard leader's exit?
|
| Roth says the Wesleyan board is supportive; maybe they are just
| lucky.
| chriskanan wrote:
| Being a super wealthy alum is a prerequisite for being a
| Trustee, and University Trustees are the group that University
| Presidents report to.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned universities lost the moral high ground
| when they prioritized ideology over truth-seeking, elevated
| identity over excellence, ostracized political outsiders, and
| lost all viewpoint diversity.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Which are not things they did.
| defen wrote:
| Does it matter if they did or didn't? Universities have
| indisputably lost the mandate of heaven, have they not?
| Arguing over whether they actually did any of those things is
| irrelevant, if a politically powerful group of people think
| they did! None of them have an objective definition, so it's
| going to come down to values, and universities / academics as
| a class have alienated themselves from a substantial portion
| of the population.
| michaelhoney wrote:
| ... or have anti-intellectual media whipped up that
| resentment as part of their culture war?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| These are grand Fox News talking points! What reality are they
| from?
| jmyeet wrote:
| The last year and a half in particular has exposed just what a
| sham the academic freedom fo colleges really is.
|
| We've always heard that the college tenure system encourages
| freedom of expression and academic freedom without the pressure
| of potential job loss. Instead what we have iscollege professors
| and administrations who move is absolute lockstep and have acted
| like jack-booted Gestapos to crush and punish First Amendment
| expression where some people merely said "maybe we shouldn't bomb
| children".
|
| Norm Finkelstein, who is a national treasure, does not have
| tenure. He is a world-authority on these issues. Why doesn't he
| have tenure? Because he embarrassed Alan Dershowtiz by exposing
| him as a rampant plagiarist and general fraud.
|
| Int he 1960s we had the National Guard open fire on anti-Vietnam
| protestors at Kent State, killing several, to repress anti-
| government speech. I swear we're not far from college
| administrators open firing on protestors directly.
|
| The collaboration between colleges (particularly Columbia) and
| the administration pales in comparison to the anti-Vietnam era.
| Colleges are standing by letting agitators attack protestors (ie
| UCLA) and then later using that violence as an excuse to crush
| the protest. They're cooperating with law enforcement to crush
| protests.
|
| But they're going beyond that. These protestors who have been
| illegally deported have largely been named and targeted by
| college administrations as well as organizations like the Canary
| Mission.
|
| Think about that: colleges are knowingly cooperating with people
| who are black-bagging people protesting against genocide, fully
| knowing they will end up in places like prisons in El Salvadore.
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